berg katze

Trade offs occur frequently in everyday life – more often than not when money or resources are concerned. In a business sense, trading off usually weighs a more immediate solution against a long-term one, leaving the company or individual to calculated the benefits and risks involved before making a decision.

Regardless of the end result, trading off requires a choice. Something must be given, and with every decision something is lost.

The current perception of traditional, so-called outbound, marketing is incredibly negative. Cold calling is a thing of the past, with the “do not call list,” caller ID, or the lack of a landline phone altogether. Most people employ ad-blockers online – even if they do purposefully disable them for sites they want to support – to rid themselves of website banners or pop-ups. Most snail mail is easily tossed into the nearest trash or recycling bin. And anyone who is asked by their company to dare and knock on the doors of people’s houses is certainly to be pitied – even girl scouts selling their well-known cookies can barely get away with this anymore.

Outbound marketing is the more traditional newspaper or magazine advertisement, designed to introduce the masses to one’s product. It’s easy to fall back on to create an initial contact point, or if one isn’t internet-savvy enough to maximize the potential of online inbound marketing. A mixture of both usually yields the best results, even with outbound marketing’s negative connotations.

In early elementary school, during an election year, I begged my parents to tell me who they voted for. They refused. Every election following, I asked them who they voted for. Every year they refused to tell me.

To this day, even as an adult, I still have no idea who they vote for.

No sooner had she muttered, “Man, I’m hungry,” as the camera lingered on her mostly uneaten lunch than I loved Hajime Ichinose. She was colorful and quirky, but had trouble expressing herself clearly through speech. A person of action, she was restless from the moment that Gatchaman Crowds introduced her in her school classroom.